When Only Ghosts Remain
by alucinor
Summary: It only takes a moment to shatter a life, but piecing one back together can take a lifetime.
1. Prologue

Author's Note: This story contains some dark subject matter and I can't promise that it won't upset anyone. I can say that what exists will not be explicit, but it is still there. Reading any further is your own choice, but you have been forewarned.

* * *

**_Prologue:_**

It was a beautiful afternoon.

The sun hung low in the sky, telling clearly of the fast approaching night. The reflection of light off the snow only served to remind the child of how cold it truly was outside, and just how far she had yet to go to get home. She wasn't worried though, not really. Mama had always told her that that was one of her flaws; in not being a child prone to worry, she never appreciated the idea of worry and that which others incurred as a result of her actions.

So directly, she wasn't worried. Not about the lengthening shadows nor the howls that could be heard off in the distance. She was slightly _concerned,_ however, which wasn't the same thing. She had promised Papa that she'd be home before darkness fell, and now she wasn't sure if she'd make it. That caused some distress for the child because she hated lying – especially to Papa.

He'd said, when he had argued on her behalf to her mother, "My little Jasmine cannot be confined indoors all day." Papa had picked her up then, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief as they always did, even as he proceeded to extract the promise from her. "Besides, she will be home before dark. Will you not?"

She'd nodded solemnly, but her own sparkling eyes did little to reassure her mother, who had tossed both hands up in the air in conceded defeat.

Set down upon the floor once more, she'd hugged her father fiercely and with a quick embrace to her mother, she'd run off to get her winter clothing on. It was a consent she had to make to Mama, and Papa had said she must too. So she hadn't argued, although why they thought she might was a mystery. She wasn't a child anymore! She was nine years old… well, eight and a half. That was more than old enough to make such obvious choices by herself.

Still, she wouldn't begrudge them their worry. She loved them both dearly and knew with confidence that they felt the same about her and Raissa. Her sister had been in the study, dutifully pouring over the work that their parents had asked of their eldest child.

She had tried to study diligently too, but the outdoors had beckoned her. The sunlight streaming through the window by the chair had just been too tempting, and she'd never been able to resist the pull. Young as she was, she knew with certainty that she was never meant to be like her sister. Raissa was the epitome of everything a proper lady should be. She excelled in the arts and literature, knew the right time to speak and when to remain silent. She dressed immaculately: her clothing was never _ever_ splotched with mud or stained by grass.

Yes, she really admired her older sister.. but she was never going to be her. Her mother had realized it too, though proper etiquette was still insisted upon when they visited distant friends of the family. Home at the ranch though, on the plains she so loved, she was free to pursue her decidedly very unladylike interests. That was because of Papa.

Mama had made it very clear that Papa was to blame for their wayward daughter. He always laughed in reply; that warmhearted, friendly sound that was so often heard about the place. He'd say, "My Jasmine simply has too much of the wandering spirit within her to be any different." To that, her mother agreed. Their youngest was, in that regard, entirely too much like her father.

The similarities went beyond the desire to roam, though. She looked like Papa, everyone said so. Her eyes were the same general color as Papa's too, only several shades lighter. She had the same hair and warm, infectious laugh. Had the same energy and sense of fun, not to mention the fearless nature that had gotten her into hot water with Mama on several occasions when one of her spontaneous adventures had gone awry.

She got her grace and charm from Mama though, or so Papa said.

The child sighed happily as the house came into view, smiled brightly, in spite of the cold, at the welcoming light that poured forth from the windows.

The fact that Papa wasn't outside doing the evening chores gave her momentary pause, though. She shivered at the deepening cold, and noted with resigned acceptance that the sun had vanished and that Papa probably had the tasks done. She should have been home already. Mama wasn't going to be pleased, not one little bit. And Papa wouldn't intervene this time, not when she'd broken her promise.

Sighing again, this time with a faint unhappiness, she moved easily through the remaining snow and up onto the porch. Soundlessly she glided across the wood planks, a trick she picked up from her games with Papa. Removing her snow-laden boots at the door, not willing to incur Mama's wrath should she track into the house again. Especially since she was already so late. She didn't need to add to whatever punishment was forthcoming.

Removing her coat, she hung it up on the peg outside the door. Knowing that with as much snow as it held, it too would drip unto the floor. She'd shake it out in the morning and then bring it in. Turning the doorknob, she pushed and stopped immediately; small eyes widening in horror as her ears rang from the shattering of so many illusions.

Blood bathed the far wall, dimly she noticed it on the stones of the fireplace as well. There lay her father's discarded body, the dark liquid that pooled around the figure soaked into the expensive wood of the floor. Irrationally she couldn't help but think how upset Mama was going to be at Papa for his prank.

But Papa wouldn't joke like this, and his body was so still. And there was the darker spot on his side, the mark that showed where the bleeding had begun. She squeezed her eyes shut, turning her head. Regretting instantly the moment she opened them, because that was when she saw Mama, dress ripped and sightless eyes staring ahead. Broken and discarded, like some forgotten doll.

All of that registered to her eyes before her ears managed to inform her of anything useful. By then, of course, it was too late. The opening of the door had been silent, as it usually was. But the cold air had entered with her, unseen it had chased away the heat of the fire. More than that, it had told of her presence in the house to the evil that was yet within.

She turned quickly and meant to flee, but strong arms wrapped around her middle and she couldn't get free. All her squirming and kicking was in vain, high pitched shrieks were cut short by the calloused hand that clamped down on her mouth, covering the entire lower portion of her face so that even breathing through her nose was difficult.

The man closed the door, easily dealing with the weight he carried, and turned toward the other stranger in the room.

She really had thought the bad stuff happening couldn't get any worse, but that was until she'd _seen_ and that delusion had crumbled like the rest. There was the second stranger before her, and though his back was to her he'd turned his face marginally; a frightening expression lingered in features there, mixed with some sort of elation. That was when she noticed her sister. The man was pressing down on Raissa with his body, doing something to her. His hand was around her throat, and she was thrashing weakly around.

She was dying. Whatever else was being done to her sister, she knew that Raissa was dying. Her face had darkened and her eyes were wide with terror, but the light from them was fading. There weren't any noises coming from her, no screams.

There were sounds from the man though. He'd turned forward again, and moans came from him as he moved. She didn't know why.

She didn't have time to speculate on it either as the man holding her threw her down forcefully. The sudden impact with the floor left her dazed, and he'd left her there. Confident that the harsh contact her head had made with the wood would keep her immobile for awhile. He'd moved over to the other man then, pulled him away from her sister and bent down in the other man's place.

Jumbled thoughts passed through her mind, bringing with them the remembrance of seeing one of the men's gun belt in the chair. Papa had been teaching her to shoot a rifle, so maybe if she could just get to the weapon…

That was when she realized she couldn't see anymore. Tears ran down her cheeks in rivulets, impaired her vision, making the world mesh together into blurry forms of color. Though she couldn't look anymore, she could hear.

The sound of cloth ripping was terrifying.

She tried to make sense of her surroundings through the fog descending, but the pain in her head made focusing difficult and she couldn't stop crying. Her parents were dead and Raissa…

Well, she didn't know exactly what they were doing to her sister but they were hurting her. Killing her. And as much as she wanted to help Raissa, she couldn't get her body to obey. Each limb felt like a dead weight as weariness from the day's activities overtook every muscle, her chest hurt and when she managed to lift her head slightly, she could feel a stickiness in her hair that told of bleeding.

So she lay there, innocence seeping away forever as the situation embedded itself into her mind. Stealing with it her faith and childhood dreams.

When they'd gotten to her, she couldn't even see the blurry masses of color. Her eyes stung from the salt of tears; face burning from the trails of moisture that had repeatedly trickled down over the soft flesh of her cheeks.

She wasn't even really crying anymore. Her lungs and the muscles of her abdomen had long since fatigued, and she was left making soft panicked noises. Sounds that barely registered to her attackers as the pitiful whines bordered on silence.

The glint of metal didn't even register to tear swollen eyes, but she felt it. Each and every one of the shallow cuts that split flesh on her small body. They weren't killing cuts, no mercy was in their motivation. Even at her age she recognized it for simple human cruelty. They weren't letting her die, not yet. But they weren't scholars, and they understood less about the tolerance levels of a child. When an intense pain had come, it had been the last.

Darkness, merciful and soothing in its nature, claimed her.


	2. Ch 01

_Note: This has actually been written for about a year and a half, sadly, and was rediscovered upon moving files to a new computer. It's not as long as I would like, but I actually like the stopping point so I'm going with it. I actually think about this story a lot, so the hope is to get it moving. Especially since I'm having so much trouble figuring out TSOTB and having a different story to work on isn't a bad thing._

_Disclaimer: In case anyone thinks I may have forgotten in the years since posting the prologue: The boys and their respective habitat don't belong to me. Any original characters and plot that might happen to wonder into their backyard are mine, however. _

wogr ** mag7 ** wogr ** mag7

He'd stumbled upon the grisly scene that morning: an entire family slaughtered in a way he never would have previously been capable of imagining. He might have chalked his surprise up to naivety, except it had been a long time since he'd been anything bearing resemblance to naïve. Frozen just inside the doorway, his brain had been stuck on disbelief and he hadn't been fast enough to spare JD the sight.

He wished he'd been faster.

The horrified expression hadn't left the young sheriff's face, even as confusion mingled with it. Even after everything they'd seen and done since becoming Four Corners' law, JD wasn't able to understand the depths of human depravity with which Buck had long ago become acquainted. Buck had harbored the unrealistic hope that his young friend never would have to understand, but he'd always known it was in vain. Always known that someday JD would have to truly grow up.

He just wished it hadn't been today. Hadn't been like that.

_God, why couldn't I have just been faster?_

Nobody blamed him for his lack of response to prevent JD from seeing that, but they didn't need to - Buck blamed himself. He blamed whatever sick bastard had committed this monstrous crime. What had been done to the man and woman were bad enough by anyone's standards, but what had been done to those little girls…

They'd only been children.

As soon as he'd been able to tear himself away from the blood and the sheer violence of its placement and abundance, he'd sent JD to get the boys. Buck would have come up with any reason to get JD out of there, true enough, but the rest of the seven really had been needed there and the farm couldn't be left unwatched, knowing that, however unlikely, the killer might return.

No way in hell was he leaving JD behind, even outside. So he'd watched, mind still gripped by the horror of the reality, as the young man had sped off the property like the fiends of hell were on his heels.

Maybe that wasn't so far from the truth.

wogr ** mag7 ** wogr ** mag7

He felt the firm planks of wood underneath him as he sat on the steps that lead into the house. Felt the splinters that snagged his pants; felt the weathered texture that told a story all its own. But somehow, for all that he was aware of the wood, of sitting on it, he felt like it wasn't real. It wasn't solid.

Maybe he wasn't real.

"Buck."

Could it all have been a nightmare? Maybe he was still asleep and JD would be coming in his room any minute to pester him into getting up. Better yet, maybe he was really all snuggled up and cozy warm with the curvaceous new arrival to town. He'd awaken to the feel of her body pressed up close and the heat of her breath on his face as she leaned over his ear to whisper –

"Buck!"

The big man jumped, eyes still glazed as the red-haired vision of beauty evaporated like a desert mirage to be replaced by the familiar black clad form of his oldest friend. Buck tried to ignore the heavy metallic scent detectable even on the steps, and instead focused on what Chris was saying, though he seemed to have missed something.

"…Vin's still looking for a trail, but he doesn't have much hope for finding anything to follow."

"Why?" With the flicker of annoyance that hardened his friend's face, Buck realized that must have been what he missed.

"This area is too heavily traveled, and apparently the Byrnes' just got a herd of horses." Noticing the uncomprehending blink Buck gave as he looked in the empty corrals on the large ranch, Chris continued, "They were let out."

"Trying to cover their trail?" It made sense.

"Had to have been at least sixty head. Bunkhouse looks unused; we're not sure if they had any hired help."

"Might be who we're looking for."

"Might."

"Did they take the horses?"

"They were just scattered. Doesn't look like what happened here had anything to do with them."

It was all about what happened inside that house.A deep-rooted sadness drifted across Buck's expressive features as his thoughts came full circle, wrapping around blood and pain, and the disbelief that had never vanished shone clearly. "How can anyone do something like that, Chris?"

"Don't know, Buck." There was no shared disbelief, however. He might not understand how people could do half the things they did, but he had no trouble believing that they did them. Chris was well acquainted with senseless evil. Continuing, in an effort to prevent memories from surfacing, "Got to be at least two of them. Found boot tracks in the house."

"Boot tracks? Could be Mr. Byrnes'." Buck sounded a little lost even to himself, and he tried to recall seeing anything that could help point them in the right direction, but his mind kept getting stuck on the sight of the little girls and how they'd been…

"The tracks were left because of the blood."

Oh.

That the father was dead by then didn't need to be said aloud.

wogr ** mag7 ** wogr ** mag7

Vin entered the saloon with a distinct precision of movement that indicated impending exhaustion. That weary state was confirmed when he dropped unceremoniously into the chair directly across from his friend, who took one look at the tracker and inched the whiskey bottle over with his fingers.

"Thanks, cowboy." The usual note of mischief was absent from Vin's voice as he spoke the familiar, yet loathed, nickname.

Chris let it go, something he was aware that he did a lot where Vin was concerned, and waited with more patience than anyone would have thought him capable of while Vin downed a shot to clear the dust from his parched throat.

"Didn't find anythin' real helpful. None of the horses were shod. Did a good job of scatterin' the herd and most of the markings in the area are a mess."

"We figured that would've happened." They had. Vin's having spent two days following trails was on the faintest hope of finding something useful, not a genuine belief that there was actually anything to be found.

"Yeah." The single word seemed difficult to say out loud, but that might have been due to overall fatigue. Dark smudges under worn-blue eyes, and layers of trail grime not yet washed off, testified to the fact.

"J.D. wired Eagle Bend and a few of the other towns around. Figured maybe it wasn't the first time they did this." Spoken so casually, as if it wasn't one of the most horrible things to hear about, let alone having seen the end result of. But for all the calm, neither man was casual about any of it. "Sheriff in Eagle Bend said he hasn't heard of anything like this, but he was going to send the information on to a few lawmen he knows. Might turn up something."

Vin nodded, allowing the whiskey he just drank to ease down into his stomach; the burning sensation doing its best to dislodge the dryness and irritation from his throat along the way. Yet it did little to ease the chill that had clenched his gut in foreboding, sending dread trailing along his spine in an involuntary shiver as he braced himself for whatever was to come.

It wasn't over. If his feeling told him nothing else, it did let him know that these… killings… were far from finished. He should say something, but there wasn't any proof to back up his hunch. There never was.

Glancing over the rim of his glass at Chris, taking in the dark emptiness that had suddenly consumed his expression, Vin realized that his friend had already seen. Somehow this man that he'd known for such a relatively short amount of time, for all that it sometimes felt like he'd always known Chris, had learned to read him.

No, not learned. Somehow just known.

Giving a barely there shake of his head, Vin let the thought sink back into the depths of his mind to wonder at another day. There were more important things to figure out right now. _It's not over._

Chris raised his eyes to meet that blue gaze straight on. _I know._

_wogr ** mag7 ** wogr ** mag7  
_

The service earlier that afternoon proved a somber affair, which for a funeral was not surprising. Yet, hovering almost tangibly within the air was a terrible fear. Understandable, Josiah had acknowledged as he quietly watched the few patrons of the saloon that night. The murders were horrific on a scale few could imagine. Beyond that, whoever committed them had yet to be caught which left open the distinct possibility for it to happen again.

Two days of waiting had changed the town. People had become more watchful, which given the circumstances was not necessarily a bad thing to have occur. Further though, people had taken to staying indoors at night. Most refused to leave the confines of their homes until light shone through every shadow: lit every potential danger to be clearly seen by the human eye.

Meanwhile in the dark the questions lingered loudly without answers. _An echoing silence_, Vin had called it; the statement had come from seemingly nowhere as the Seven sat in the near empty saloon. He hadn't said anything since, just stared pensively at the amber liquid in the glass before him without ever raising it to his lips.

J.D. shivered slightly in memory of those words without fully understanding why. Perhaps they sounded ominous, or simply recalled the vivid image of red splashed floors and too-still bodies. Whatever the cause, Buck raised a hand and patted the younger man on the shoulder with guilt-touched sympathy.

It was a shared guilt now, so Buck no longer bore the weight of it alone. They had information regarding the treatment of the family, but it didn't bring them closer to discovering who did any of it.

Days ago Vin had already believed that Mr. and Mrs. Byrnes' had died first and quickly, while the deaths of their daughters had taken time. He believed that the children had drawn the killers there, a thought supported by the extra attention paid to the youngest members of the family. Nathan supported the tracker's opinion concerning the order of the deaths. The fatal wounds on the bodies of the adults would have felled them and rendered them motionless, and the amount of blood pooled around them had occurred as a result of the weapon used rather than any prolonged beating of the heart.

The girls though hadn't died from a single wound. Their deaths were likely caused by blood loss through hundreds of small cuts, inflicted during the course of being defiled. Although shock was always a possibility as well.

_Children._

None of them were so hardened of men that they could ignore the crime was worse for the involvement and sickening abuse of kids. Which explained why, after some intense discussion about what little they knew and possible ways of pursuing information, conversation had mostly dried up between them.

J.D. and Buck still spoke, in low tones soft as a whisper without the intent of excluding anyone from hearing. The oppressive quality of the night lent itself to quiet words.

Josiah and Nathan had left on patrol when frustrations had gotten the best of them all, and no more useful conversation could be had. Riding double on patrol wasn't anything actually agreed upon, but Josiah hadn't wanted Nathan to ride alone and claimed the need for fresh air. A claim that probably wasn't so much a lie as it was an honest circumstance that gave a valid reason to go, although he hadn't really needed one. Besides, the increased patrols seemed to give some small measure of comfort to the townspeople and if the Seven couldn't give them answers, then they were going to at least give them that.

Meanwhile, Ezra flipped through a deck of cards, focusing on each and every one as though they held the power to deliver from memory the sadistic tortures visited upon the victims. Chris was trying not to become lost in the past as visions of fire flickered before green eyes. And Vin…

Vin was still staring at the untouched drink in front of him, and who really knew what he saw reflected in the glass.


End file.
